Not Like Us
by HecateA
Summary: It's daunting, becoming a big brother for the first time- everything is when you're not supposed to be alive. Oneshot.


**I'm a big, big fan of imagining Percy and Jason holding babies, and I'm also a big fan of fluffy future-fics. Seeing as I finally found a way to do it without romance and explored fantasy sociology along the way, I'm pretty happy about how this little ficlet turned out. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the PJO universe.**

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 **Not Like Us**

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"I feel like I'm going to be sick," Percy said as they starred down the front door.

"We're going to be okay," Jason said.

What he didn't mention was that he too felt like he was going to be sick. Chiron had summoned them to his office and scheduled this appointment weeks ago, but Jason wasn't any more prepared now than he'd been then.

"Okay, well, one of us has to ring the doorbell," Percy said. Jason didn't move much, so Percy did.

"Aren't you supposed to knock at a house with babies? In case they're sleeping?"

Percy cussed in Ancient Greek but shut up just as the door was open, just a crack. The woman peeking through was young, with brown hair tied into a careless knot and glasses perched at the tip of her nose like a librarian.

"Hi," Jason said. "Umm, my name's Jason Grace. This is my cousin Percy."

"You're the boys Chiron told us about," she said. "Come in, come in."

She swung the door open and Jason and Percy shuffled forwards, nodding their heads when she said to keep their shoes and not to mind the mess and introduced herself as Dr Ella Seaborn.

"Alice!" she called out. "Alice, they're here."

A door swung open and a woman crept up from the basement, smiling when she saw them. Her hair reached her waist in tousled red curls and there was a splash of freckles over her nose. She held a baby against her hip, and Jason basically stopped breathing.

"Hello," Alice said coming forwards. "Alice O'Malley, it's great to meet you."

"The pleasure is ours," Jason said politely.

"You can grab a seat in the living room," Ella said. "I'll just go get Maggie, I just put her to bed."

"Sorry," Percy said. "If this is a bad time you don't have to wake her…"

"No, no, no," Ella said. "You came all this way. It's no bother, she probably isn't even sleeping."

Alice was warm and welcoming and cheerful and charismatic. She settled Percy and Jason on the couch in no time flat and had them chatting about school and Percy's new job as a lifeguard and Jason's basketball team. The baby she held played with her hair and Jason still wasn't breathing, that's how fixated he was on him.

Percy understood the feeling when Ella came in holding Maggie against her chest. The baby had wispy black hair covering the top of her head and big, startling green eyes. Percy had seen baby pictures of himself but he hadn't understood just how bright those eyes were on babies. Maggie bit her lips as if she was trying not to talk or thinking very hard, and she wore a long white shirt and a cute blue skirt.

"Here we are," Ella said. "There's everyone."

This was technically the first time that two children of Poseidon and two children of Zeus had ever been together in decades- an alluring type of scent that monsters all around the country hadn't sniffed in ages. It was stressful to think about the logistics of this alone, and Jason couldn't help but keep his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"So you're the two children of the Elder gods that Chiron was telling us about," Alice said.

"Well, technically there are five of us total, if you go on a demigods-only base," Percy said. "But the two children of Hades were born _before_ the oaths were put in place."

"Long story," Jason said. "And I have a sister who's older than I am. She'd be somewhere in her twenties, I think. She's the leader of the hunters of Artemis, so… she kind of fell through the cracks."

"Which one of you was the prophecy really about?" Ella asked. "The big one that created this fuss."

"Me," Percy said. "Yeah, umm… it wasn't fun. I'm glad it's over, and for these two as well."

The two first children of the Big Three born after the oaths were cut off... Chiron had told Percy and Jason one day at camp with a faint smile on his lips. He asked them if they'd be interested in meeting them, and in the moment the two had said yes, absolutely and they'd been overjoyed and dizzy with excitement. But now that they were here, they were useless and limp and nervous.

"Well," Alice said. "This is Quentin. He's a son of Zeus."

"Like me," Jason said quietly. Quentin was a cute baby, with a big head and big eyes, his eyebrows upturned and his smile big and likeable. He was absolutely adorable.

"We were wondering if he was just going to be blue-eyed as a baby," Alice said smiling at Jason.

"No," Jason said. He laughed a bit. "No, those stay."

Quentin was looking at Jason.

"Hey big guy," Jason said looking back at him. His heart was beating. He had lots of experience with children; he used to babysit in New Rome and Julia was his number one. But babies? Babies were new, and this one was terrifying.

"Would you like to hold him?" Alice asked.

"Oh, umm, sure. But I've never held a baby."

"Oh, me neither until I had one," Alice said getting up. "Don't worry. Here, let me show you."

She'd patched Jason up in no time, and Percy hadn't noticed Ella coming by him.

"This is Maggie," she said. "I don't think it's hard to tell that she's…"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're related," Percy said smiling at Maggie. He poked her tummy. "Yeah, baby? Are we related?"

Ella placed Maggie in Percy's arms and Maggie, a bit older than Quentin, was adventurous enough to try to wiggle her way out and make things interesting as Percy teased her and babytalked her and tickled her and bounced her on his knee.

Quentin fell asleep soundly in Jason's arms, gripping the sleeve of Jason's thermal shirt as he settled in against Jason's strong arms without even questioning who this stranger was and becoming immediately comfortable in his brother's arms.

It didn't take long for the two of them to look at each other and realise that they were crying.

It was the relief of knowing that some things would never happen again, for Percy. It was the relief of being able to picture Maggie at his table, but with brothers and sisters all around her. Okay, that was maybe gross- visualising how promiscuous his own dad was going to be- but it was true. He could picture Maggie laying down by the lake with some sisters, or teaching a younger brother how to surf at the beach or flipping other cabins' canoes and running around camp without a care in the world… He could picture her as a part of camp, but as just another nameless face in the masses of demigods without a single prophecy to her name.

For Jason it was something stranger. It was something about touching down with his roots before it was too late; before finding out that he had to please to deserve attention, that someone was dead, that someone was years and years older than he may ever be and had been immortalised... It was seeing Quentin in a loving home- with his mother who clearly loved him to the moon and back, with Ella who would always be there in the worst case scenarios, with Maggie who could grow up with him and annoy the hell out of him and create the kind of bond Jason had made with his cousins but much, much earlier. It was seeing that Quentin was already in a much better place than Jason had been.

Percy took a deep breath and smiled. Ella laughed.

"Are you guys okay?" Alice asked kindly.

"Yeah," Jason said. "It's just... It's crazy. I was always so alone growing up because I was the only son of Jupiter- Zeus. It's so shocking to see... another one."

"It's crazy to see her this young," Percy said. He hadn't realised it, but he was holding Maggie protectively. "It's like, not everyone _knows_ yet, you know? Like… one day this was me, this was us. We were just small and innocent and adorable. And now I'm this and Jason's that, but Maggie and Quentin won't ever have to see half the stuff we've seen. It's a good feeling."

"It is," Jason said. "It's good… to know that these two won't be neglected and ostracised and unclaimed for ages and forced to be these great heroes unless it's who they are. They're never going to… to hide their powers from everyone else or get lonely or feel left out or be treated like freaks because they won't be. No, these kids are going to be happy. They're going to be… they're going to be just fine."

Ella and Alice looked at each other.

"The oaths our parents swore in the 1940's did more harm than good," Jason said.

"It would've been fine if they'd actually not had kids," Percy said. "But they did, and it worked against us. Let's just put it at that."

Ella nodded and touched Percy's arm comfortingly.

"I'm sorry," Ella said. "But thank you for breaking the ice for our children. Thank you."

They took pictures for Piper and Annabeth, who'd really wanted to come but who'd stayed away to manage the scents (hopefully their eyes weren't as red). They listened to Ella and Alice tell them about their chance encounter and how they'd decided to move in together, to Alice telling them about her career with the air force, Ella and Percy had a conversation on her work studying the life cycle of coral.

"We brought stuff for you guys," Jason said, remembering out of nowhere.

"Right!" Percy said. "Right."

They'd brought baby clothes, of course. Percy's mother had insisted, saying that they couldn't just bring strange presents if they wanted to be welcomed and well-rounded. They'd brought a sealed bottle of nectar and explained lengthily and time and time again how the kids were too young _now_ to have it and even when you were old enough it could be dangerous, but in case of emergency it was their best bet. They also had two golden arrows, one for Alice and one for Ella, explaining that they were gifts from the gods and that they'd fight off monsters and give them enough time to escape if anything ever happened.

"These are gold coins," Jason said. "From New Rome's stash. Gold is an excellent conductor of electricity. Just carrying it around like a token or whatever, it'll help Quentin stabilise the amount of energy and electricity he gives off and absorbs. It's hard to _not_ do it on purpose sometimes, just by walking around even. I'm so tired when I don't carry gold around, I swear."

"These are sea salts," Percy said. "If you can't get Maggie to the sea when she's sick or upset, just a bath with these help."

"These are called drachmas, they're Ancient Greek currency," Jason said. "They come in handy."

"My mom said to bring you this," Percy said taking out a thick pack of papers. "It's an inventory of monsters and gods and beasts and how to recognise them as well as various other things I guess she did when I was young. She scribbled our phone number, her cell number and email on the corner. She said to call her literally all the time, no matter what."

Then they started spewing advice.

"He's going to hate showering," Jason told Alice. "It's the water, nothing feels worst than water against your skin. Dry shampoo is going to be his best friend to make showers shorter."

"Keep Maggie away from sea life and horses until she's claimed," Percy said. "They _will_ talk to her, it _will_ be weird."

"Quentin's going to have a phase where he'll climb everything and anything in sight," Jason said. "And it's totally going to freak you out, but don't worry about it- like, at all. Even if he falls he won't hurt himself, it's just a kick that children of Zeus go on, I don't know why we do it but we do."

"Never go on a place with Maggie," Percy said. "I did it twice and one time was an emergency and it was horrible, and the other was even worst and I thought I was going to die the entire time and if I hadn't been holding Zeus' master bolt I would have been shot out of the sky no questions asked."

"You had the master bolt?" Alice asked.

"It was my first quest," Percy said.

"I don't even want to know what the other ones were," Ella said shaking her head.

"Don't worry," Percy said. "Sorry if we're a bit overwhelming. Being a demigod is harder than it looks, and we're considered to have pretty extensive resumes and chaotic lives even by half-blood standarts. Maggie and Quention should be okay."

"They're not like us," Jason said plainly, looking at these two loved children in a loving home in a world that maybe, just maybe, was ready to love them too.


End file.
